1 Share

Share

"Hello, human, tell me your age."Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

While following Mitt Romney on the campaign trail, the Times has noticed some interesting quirks about how the candidate attempts, often unsuccessfully, to interact with voters. The paper of record analyzes these odd habits today in a piece that treats Romney not merely as a generally awkward person, but possibly as an alien or robot struggling to navigate the world of man and all of his complex social norms and expectations. Here are the five moments in the piece where Romney appears most un-human:

2. When Romney can't compute an acceptable response to a comment directed at him, he will quickly shut down the conversation, like a web browser that crashes when loading a complicated program:

In Bedford, N.H., a woman walked up to him after a speech and declared: “I have a lot [of] friends who say you are the robotic type. And I am like, no, you need to stay that way because you are a leader.”

Mr. Romney’s mouth arched into a somewhat pained smile as he rushed to conclude the conversation. “Nice to see you guys,” he said as he walked away.

1. Romney has trouble with the uniquely human trait known as "humor," sometimes falsely detecting it when it does not exist:

[A] voter named David Rivers asked Mr. Romney whether there would be place for Mr. Paul, a Texas congressman, in a Romney White House. Mr. Romney treated the question as a joke, letting out a laugh and walking on by.

“I was actually kind of serious,” Mr. Rivers said in an interview afterward.